A stunningly preserved dinosaur has skin like that of modern birds and crocodiles, a paleontologist says. "This is the closest you're going to get to patting the animal."

The one-acre human-made cave in the Jordan Valley, thought to have begun as a quarry, may later have been converted for other uses, including a monastery or a hideout for persecuted Christians.

A 54-million-year-old primate followed its nose, and that might help reveal why today's primates—including humans—have comparatively big brains.

Three times longer than today's piranha--and with more teeth to boot--eight-million-year-old Megapiranha solves an evolutionary mystery, a new study says.

Scientists unravel the mysteries of handprints, a universal form of human expression spanning continents and millennia

An archaeologist overturns assumptions about who may have decorated prehistoric European caves.

Lady Hor, an ancient Egyptian mummy at New York's Brooklyn Museum, is actually Sir Hor, CT scans reveal. Video.

The 2,000-year-old, human-made cave—the largest in Israel—is etched with crosses and may have served as a Christian refuge, monastery, and quarry, experts say.

A newfound vulture-bone flute is likely the world's oldest recognizable musical instrument, a new study says. The 40,000-year-old flute may add to evidence that music helped do in the Neanderthals.

From wayward nuns to convicted witches, the global custom of burying people "prone" was likely used to disrespect or humiliate the dead, according to the first study of its kind.

It may not have had a trunk or Dumbo ears, but the 60-million-year-old elephant ancestor with proto-tusks looms large in mammalian history, a new study says.

Gene studies linking humans to modern African apes are flawed, says a new study that argues we have more physical traits in common with the orangutans of Southeast Asia.

Scientists in Indonesia claim they have unearthed the 200,000-year-old skeleton of a giant elephant that stood more than 13 feet (4 meters) tall. Video.

With giant sperm up to ten times its body length, the male seed shrimp is the beneficiary of an evolutionary adaptation tens of millions of years in the making, a new study says.

Russell Ciochon shook our family tree 15 years ago when he announced a new form of early human ancestor found in China. Now the anthropologist says the fossil is a "mystery ape."